“Morales, Megan,” Sister yelled over the din of gunfire as she slammed the van door closed. “Get these people out of here now!”
Megan’s eyes widened with fear when the skinny dead brashly landed next to Goss from five cars away and smacked him on the head before disappearing in a blur. She didn’t want to be taken as cattle again so she dropped in the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“Sister–” began Morales.
“I don’t need your lip today. Do as I say!” She waited until the van drove off before turning back to deal with the Cirque du Freak vampires.
Goss’ arm muscles bulged as he rained fire over the halfdeads who were obviously toying with them.
Sister glanced at Poe. The girl’s sidearms were down to her side. She’d stopped firing altogether, her eyes carefully following Charlene’s every move. Inhaling deeply, Poe raised her Beretta and fired once. The haze that was Charlene slumped face down on the roof, writhing for a few seconds until her body stilled.
Sister felt a chill through her body. She’d always thought the girl was an instinctive shooter, but hitting a vampire that was a mere blur with one bullet in the heart should have been impossible.
“Charlene,” cried Romeo who watched his partner get killed three car roofs away. He looked at Poe, baring incisors that grew three inches in length. He leapt, easily dodging Goss’ indiscriminate fire. The giant’s clip was nearly empty. The cheeky vampire landed in front of Goss, yanked his semi-automatic from his hand so hard that the strap gave way. With a grunt, the vampire slugged Goss in the face until he slammed against Sister’s Harley.
“Fuck!” Romeo screamed when Sister’s shotgun blast hit. His right shoulder hissed from the garlic burning its way into his flesh like acid. Pissed and high 47
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on undead adrenaline, he jumped into the air with the intention of squishing the nun like a spider.
The downing of Poe’s colleagues happened faster than her eyes could register, but when she saw the vampire leap to crush Sister Ann, her nostrils flared and all concentration went to exterminating the dead once and for all. She fired twice, shattering the vampire’s head and puncturing his neck. Romeo fell square on Sister Ann. By the time Poe untangled the vampire from her, the nun was drenched in vampire sludge.
“No communication for a month,” said Goss when he came to, his cheekbone and eye swollen already.
“Don’t go to your homes. Hide in other buildings and basements, the ones where we hid canned goods and such. Do this for a month. Assume we’re tracked.”
“We’ll celebrate your birthday on the fourth week Poe,” said Sister Ann.
“We’ll bring weevil-free cake mix and we’ll have a party.”
“Promise?” asked Poe, dreading being alone downtown for four weeks.
“We promise,” said Sister, embracing Poe voluntarily for once. “God bless you, child.”
48
CHAPTER 2–CORNED BEEF, YAM, AND A PINT
OF RED
SHE SPENT HER BIRTHDAY by herself, eating a can of sweet yams in a shed in Chinatown. All night she craved something salty because of the sickeningly sweet canned root that smelled of rust. Worse, it gave her terrible gas.
“No more yams for me,” she vowed.
During the day, Poe foraged for water. The thought of undead eyes following her every move ate at her, cutting her outings short. These were the times she ignored her preference for non-animal food, gulping down expired Spam, rancid corned beef, and slimy Vienna sausages from cans placed by Sister Ann and Goss in various hiding holes. She sorely missed the safe, cool bunker containing her favorite movies. It was like reliving the nightmare of being homeless the first few weeks of the Gray Armageddon.
The darkness of the streets was the worst for it made her hideaway more tomb-like. Streetlights, their bulbs long expired, were only towering relics of days long passed. Otherwise, the moon, flaming metal rubbish drums, and flashlights were the only light sources at night. The city truly became dead after sunset.
Not once during the weeks under metal slabs, inside janitorial closets, and semi-buried below the 49
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earth did Poe avoid hearing the garbled, gleeful sounds of vampires hunting four-legged beasts.
“Look how low we’ve been reduced to,” the bitterest of two voices complained from below a dark attic hideout where Poe could clearly see through the uneven floor slabs. “Man, we’re the top of the food chain, but we hunt dogs and vermin for something warm to munch.”
“That dickhead Sainvire and his farms! He can just shove his microwaved plasma